The historic county of Sussex in Southern England has a rich musical heritage that encompasses the genres of folk, classical, rock, and popular music amongst others. With the unbroken survival of its indigenous music, Sussex was at the forefront of the English folk music revivals of the 19th and 20th centuries. Many classical composers have found inspiration in Sussex, and the county continues to have a thriving musical scene across the musical genres. In Sussex by the Sea, the county has its own unofficial anthem.
Perhaps the first known musical instrument from Sussex is the so-called 'Sussex horn', a variant of the Bronze Age Irish horn. Dating from around 900BC this instrument was found in the late 18th century at the bottom of a well in Battle.
Folk music Traditional music Of all the counties in England, it is Sussex that appears to have drawn the greatest attention from folk song collectors over a period of some 130 years. This was due to a flourishing tradition of folk dance, mummers plays (known in Sussex as Tipteers' or Tipteerers' plays) and folk song, but also in part because of the rural nature of the county in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and yet its relatively close proximity to London.
Passed on through oral tradition, many of Sussex's traditional songs may not have changed significantly for centuries, with their origins perhaps dating as far back as the time of the South Saxons. Writing in 1752, John Burton commented on the "sharp pitch" and "goatish noise" of the Sussexians, which William Henry Hudson thought still held true when writing nearly 150 years later.
In the Sussex tradition there is a strong vein of lyrical songs reflecting the life of the countryside and romance. There are also ballads, drinking songs and songs that capture the 'Silly Sussex' humour of the county.
Folk song collecting Perhaps the earliest of collections was made by the Revd. John Broadwood in 1843, published as Old English Songs - as now sung by the Peasantry of the Weald of Surrey and Sussex. His niece, Lucy Broadwood, published the anthologies Sussex Songs, English County Songs and English Traditional Songs and Carols. Probably because of the presence of the Broadwoods in the area, most of the traditional Sussex music collected in the early days of the folk revival came from around Horsham. Classical musicians who also explored the Sussex repertoire include Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Grainger was rather cavalier in his appropriation of the folk melodies he recorded from all over the world, including arrangements of old Sussex tunes such as The Merry King and the Sussex Mummers' Christmas Carol. (Mummers in Sussex dialect are known as Tipteers or Tipteerers). Singer, Henry Burstow, was known to have over 400 songs in his repertoire. Ralph Vaughan Williams' use of the tune of Our Captain Calls All Hands as sung by Harriett Verrall of Monks Gate, near Horsham, as a setting for John Bunyan’s To be a Pilgrim and George Butterworth’s arrangement of Folk Songs from Sussex. The tune used by Harriett Verrall was also used by Vaughan Williams in what subsequently became known as the Sussex Carol. Using early sound-recording equipment, Vaughan Williams was able to make actual recordings of some songs, including a 1907 version of The Trees They Do Grow High as sung by David Penfold, the landlord of the Plough Inn at Rusper.
Kate Lee, one of the founders of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, found James 'Brasser' Copper and his brother Thomas, the landlord of the Black Horse public house in Rottingdean. In the 1950s Brasser's son Jim, grandson, Bob and others were featured by the BBC and broadcast The Life of James Copper, honouring him with a front cover photo on the Radio Times and asked to sing in London's Royal Albert Hall. Another founder of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, William Henry Gill also collected and arranged folk song material from Sussex.
Sometimes song lyrics were recorded with some censorship, such as the Sussex Whistling Song and the Horn Fair song. Sung to the tune of Lillibullero and edited for its coarseness, the Sussex Whistling Song describes the Devil's dislike of the wife of a Sussex farmer in which the refrain was whistled. As is usual in Sussex lore, the Devil is depicted in a foolish light, in this case 'the wife' gets the better of him. In 1861 Mark Antony Lower wrote that "The effect, when continued by strong whistles of a group of lusty countrymen, is very striking, and cannot be adequately conveyed by description."
The Horn Fair song was written about a fair known for its drinking and licentiousness. Sussex drinking songs include the Sussex Toast and Twankydillo. Writer Hilaire Belloc, who spent most of his life in the county, enjoyed traditional Sussex singing, writing two drinking songs, the Sussex Drinking Song, which was set to music by Martyn Wyndham-Read, and the West Sussex Drinking Song, which was included in Belloc's novel, The Four Men: a Farrago, and was put to music in 1921 by Ivor Gurney. Belloc wrote about singing as if it were the soul of Sussex and a key part of its identity. Belloc described the 'proper type of song' for Sussex as being the glee, comparing the glee's relationship to Sussex with that of the ritornello of Italy, the seguidilla of Spain, the pastourou of Provence and the saga of the North Sea. Glee harmonies have also been part of the repertoire of the Copper family for several hundred years. Belloc also calls a song named Golier the "national anthem" of Sussex.
Sung at the annual dinner of the now-defunct Men of Sussex Society, The Song o' the Sussex Men, written in Sussex dialect by Arthur Beckett, contains verses about various characters associated with Sussex including St Wilfrid, St Cuthman, St Dunstan, John Dudeney, Tom Paine, Tom Tipper, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Richard Cobden and the Devil.
Songs were sometimes associated with ritual. Turn the Cup Over was a one-verse song which would be sung after completion of the summer's harvest and would be held in the open air or in a large hall. A 'chairman' would be appointed to pass the cup to each man in turn, who would drink while the other men sang. After his drink, the drinker would have to use the hat to throw the cup into the air and catch it as it fell. Failure to do so would compel the man to go through the ceremony again. Singing in the pub would also have ritualised elements. The 'chairman' would decide who should sing next. Some men, particularly older men, would have a song they would always sing, and it would have been considered impertinence for anyone else to attempt it.
Other singers included Michael Blann, a shepherd from Upper Beeding, George Attrill from Stopham, Hastings fisherman Noah Gillette. Often singing unaccompanied, Sussex's folk music also had musicians, including renowned fiddler, Michael Turner of Warnham. Taken from a tune by Mozart, Michael Turner's waltz is also known as the Sussex Waltz. Some singers like George 'Pop' Maynard in Copthorne and George 'Spike' Spicer in Selsfield in the Ashdown Forest gained a following from beyond their native Sussex. Tester noted that there were a large number of fiddle players in Ashdown Forest before the First World War but by the 1920s there were very few, changes which were reflected across England.
Folk revival In the 1960s, English folk music went through a revival of interest, which was also true of folk music in Sussex. Scan Tester's recordings were published posthumously in the 1990 album I Never Played to Many Posh Dances (sometimes misquoted as "I Never Played Too Many Posh Dances"). Tester was an accomplished musician, playing the concertina, melodeon, bandoneon and fiddle. Sisters Dolly and Shirley Collins from Hastings gained some popularity in the 1960s, producing the 1967 album of mainly Sussex tunes, The Sweet Primeroses as well as the 1969 album Anthems in Eden. According to some commentators, many people believe that the folk-rock revolution of 1969 would not have happened without the album that Shirley Collins recorded with guitarist Davey Graham, released in 1964 as Folk Roots, New Routes". Shirley Collins founded the Etchingham Steam Band with her husband at the time Ashley Hutchings while they were living in Etchingham. It was formed after the break-up of the Albion Country Band and ended with the formation in 1976 of the Albion Dance Band. Founding Sussex's first folk club in 1958, Tony Wales also recorded the first LP of Sussex Folk Songs and Ballads in 1957 on the Folkways Records label in New York, and in 1961 organised the first Horsham Folk Festival.
21st century Singing under the name Young Coppers, the young generation of the Copper Family of Rottingdean continue the family tradition of singing, in what is at least the seventh generation to do so. They were also part of the original line-up of The Imagined Village, a project formed to represent the multicultural folk music traditions of the United Kingdom. Brighton-based folk-punk band The Levellers who formed in 1988 continue to play, winning the Roots Award at the 2011 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Combining a vocal sound reminiscent of folk singers Sandy Denny and fellow Sussexian Shirley Collins with sounds from New Orleans and Vancouver, folk-blues band Smoke Fairies emerged in the early 2000s to acclaim, particularly in the United States. Passenger (real name Mike Rosenberg) achieved success in folk-alternative rock genre, both with the band Passenger and as a solo artist. Singer-songwriter Mary Hampton has been critically acclaimed,Jeanette Leech & Richard S Jones, Shindig!, Nov–Dec 2008, p.80. as have Hatful of RainReviewer Steve Price describes the group as "gifted", giving "impressively polished performances" and having a "confidently beautiful sound" with, in Chloe Overton, a "captivating lead voice". who combine folk music with bluegrass music. In 2016 Shirley Collins released Lodestar, her first new studio album in 38 years and the following year a documentary film about Collins' return to performing, The Ballad of Shirley Collins, was released.
The county has over twenty folk clubs and other venues hosting folk music. There are also annual folk music festivals at Eastbourne, Crawley, Bognor RegisSouth Downs Folk Festival http://www.southdownsfolkfest.co.uk/, retrieved 27/01/14. and Lewes.Folk and Roots, , retrieved 13/02/09; Folk in Sussex, http://www.norman.hopson.btinternet.co.uk/sussexfolk.tml, retrieved 13/02/09. In 2012, Sussex's traditional folk songs were being taught to new generations as part of a project by the South Downs Society, with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Following the end of this project in March 2013, the South Downs Folk Singers were formed to carry on singing the old songs in regular pub sessions and festivals throughout the Downs.
Since 2015 a cultural charity, Sussex Traditions, has created a public database of thousands of records, relating particularly to traditional song but also to Sussex traditions generally.
Classical music Sussex has also been home to many composers of classical music. It is highly likely that two of the three English choirbooks that survive from the early Tudor period originated in Sussex. The Caius Choirbook was presented from the Master of Arundel College to St Stephen's Chapel in Westminster; the Lambeth Choirbook (or Arundel Choirbook) remained at Arundel as a working choirbook. The Arundel choirbook contains works by several composers including Walter Lambe, a former lay clerk at Arundel. The Caius choirbook includes work by Edmund Turges. A tradition of performing polyphonic music was probably firmly entrenched by the end of the fifteenth century.